A rich man’s Proz? Translation startup provides controlled B2B arena

Sep 2

I just learned about a fairly new translation startup called Cloudwords.com. This company does something unique. It provides an online platform where companies can post translation projects and get bids by vendors which have been pre-selected and approved by Cloudwords. Its platform also allows tools for managing the translation project, tracking the various stages, gauging the qualities of the various vendors and more. Will it work? The company is well-funded by a bunch of ex- and present Salesforce.com managers. They already have a cadre of about 20 good translation vendors (some of the names are: Ocean Translation, MyGengo, Ad Verbum, Lingo24, Milengo). It looks like a promising venture.

Proz.com is the yardstick by which any translation portal and online bidding platform is measured. Proz.com is not the first such website but is by far the best. As someone who has used this system a million times, I can testify that it is magic. You can post your project within minutes, set your project parameters, and the bids starts coming in. I have assigned urgent projects in Proz.com in minutes and the results have variably been good.

But Proz.com has some bad things too. Proz.com does not vet its members at all. Any person (or animal for that matter, if they can work the Internet) can sign up to Proz.com and claim they are an expert translator or translation vendor. This means that the job poster needs to perform extensive due diligence before selecting the translator/vendor; and even then I can tell you from my own experience that you can get burned with poor quality and/or missed deadlines. And what recourse do you have? Zilch. You may get an apology from Proz.com but nothing more.

Proz.com can be bad for vendors/translators as well. Since (unlike eLance and Rentacoder) they have no escrow system in place, translators/vendors can get cheated out of their due payment.

Another Proz.com shortcoming is that once the first contact is made and the translator/vendor is selected, all communication is best done offline using email. Proz.com does not offer any tracking tools or metrics to assist in translation project management.

Cloudwords.com seems to have thought up a solution which sidesteps many of these problems. I signed up for a free trial and started to post a test project. The user interface seems easy to use and posting a translation project is straightforward. I did not simulate a full project cycle but will be pleased to do so (and write another post about it at a later time).

How will Cloudwords.com make money? This is the tricky part. From what I can see, Cloudwords.com sells subscriptions to use their system. Several price points are offered ($199 and $599 a month options are listed on their website). Although not stated on their website, I have to assume that Cloudwords.com gets a cut from the vendors. Do companies need to escrow funds in before placing an order? Does Cloudwords.com assume any liability and ensure that vendors get paid? How can translation vendors join Cloudwords.com? These are interesting questions and I hope that someone at Cloudwords.com reads this and lets me know.

One of the other things that I found puzzling is a quote from the CEO of Cloudwords.com in a press-release that I read this week:

There are a lot of underserved businesses that top players in translation aren’t touching, so there’s a lot of potential here. Companies that are looking to spend $1 to $5 million a year on translation are what we’re targeting now.

First of all, as I understand it Cloudwords.com is a broker between companies and translation vendors. They are not a translation provider in any way. So their sales strategy is most unconventional in the translation and localization industry. Rather than sell a service or a product, they are selling a website which functions as a combined B2B arena and TMS (Translation Management System). In the translation industry, LSPs are geared to sell language services.

The other thing that surprised me is to learn that SDL, Lionbridge, Transperfect and the other big players are ignoring a whole bunch of $1 to $5 Million a year customers? Is that a true statement? I highly doubt it.

Has anybody used Cloudwords.com? Please add a comment if you have anything to report.

Cloudwords launches native cloud translation with Salesforce execs’ help (venturebeat.com)
Visit Cloudwords at DreamForce And Win a DODOcase for your iPad (cloudwords.com)
Podcast: interview with Renato Beninatto about Localization World Barcelona 2011 (blogproz.wordpress.com)

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Comments

Lori Thicke

September 2nd, 2011 at 10:56 AM

Interesting blog!

We use ProZ’s platform for Translators without Borders, and I agree, it works like magic. AND there is a way for you to have some control over the quality of the people who respond to your job postings.

Translators without Borders, for example, has a closed job board. That is, jobs are only posted to translators who have previously passed our test – which was administered semi-automatically on ProZ.com. In this closed loop, projects are posted for only vetted translators to pick up.

As you know, our volunteers donate free translations to support humanitarian work around the globe so there’s no bidding going on, However, I don’t see any reason why an LSP couldn’t have its own closed circle of vetted translators, as we do.

The advantage of working with the ProZ platform? We feel it every day: the advantage of working in a translation community that is 400,000 professionals strong!
Martin Holmshaw

September 2nd, 2011 at 11:06 AM

Dave,
As a localisation consultant, I’ve been aware of Cloudwords for most of this year.
You should also take a look at http://www.translizer.co.uk; these guys (European)were the first to take to market a translation procurement tool that provides it’s users a translation quotation in real time as opposed to 48 hours (Cloudwords).
It’s an interesting quote from Michael concerning their targetting companies with that level of localisation budget that are underserved. I’ve looked at Cloudwords from a benchmarking perspective; the majority of LSP’s listed as vendors in Cloudwords would not be able to service a $1 million single client account.
Indeed a company that is spending $1m – $5m in translation is going to want something more sophisticated than that which Cloudwords currently offers.
My own thoughts – I think Cloudwords appeal may not go beyond the USA – typically UK & European buyers of translation services tend to be savvy buyers and know the localisation industry and would not be prepared to pay a licence or users fee for what is essentialy a project management interface in the clouds that allows a user to work with multiple vendors through a single interface that offers a single invoice.
Dave

September 3rd, 2011 at 12:32 PM

Hi Lori, I did not know that you can post jobs on Proz.com to a select group of translators. Thanks for letting us know.

Martin, thanks for your analysis. I was not aware of Translizer. I’ll check it out and maybe we can do a blog post on them as well.
Eve

September 5th, 2011 at 6:09 AM

Hello,

Interesting post and comments! congratulations for the blog.

There is also a very interesting site http://www.bewords.com which directly connects translators and clients while providing a wide range of services: with a user-friendly project management tool clients can upload their translation projects, search for translators (and save their favorite providers), ask for quotes (and get quick answers from providers), pay online (Bewords.com have a escrow service which enables customers to pay upfront for their translation projects and for providers to have the guarantee that they will be paid. When the customer is satisfied and acknowledges receipt of the project, and if not dispute has appeared, BeWords pays the provider deducting a small commission fee to pay for financial and risk coverage costs.) The whole service is entirely free for clients.
The company makes money by selling Premium accounts to its translator members who can benefit from google ads, profile Certification, and other advantages.

It would be interesting to have a blog post on this company as well.

Greetings

Eve
Dave

September 5th, 2011 at 7:43 AM

Hi Eve, thanks. I looked at the website briefly and on my browser (Safari on MAC OS/X) the website displays poorly with truncated icons and such. This site should get some design improvements if it is to be taken seriously. Good luck, Dave
Eve

September 6th, 2011 at 2:21 AM

Thank you very much for your comment Dave, we are currently working on these issues, hopefully it will be solved soon!

Have a very nice day.

Eve
Roman Mironov

September 10th, 2011 at 2:49 AM

Hello Dave,

Thank you for yet another interesting blog post!

Warm regards,
Roman
st giles

September 21st, 2011 at 4:59 PM

لماذا هذا الموقع ليس لديها دعم لغات أخرى؟
Vertaalbureau Perfect

November 21st, 2011 at 3:41 AM

Interesting blogpost, we also work with ProZ.com but haven’t suffered any mistakes from them yet . CloudWords is definitely something to look out for the future.

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